Guess How Much I Love You? reviews at the Royal Court – Critics rave about new drama starring Rosie Sheehy & Robert Aramayo

"Shattering portrait of a pregnancy in crisis"

"Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo excel as a couple reeling from an ultrasound scan in Luke Norris’s extraordinary play"

"Luke Norris’s play is a harrowing portrait of pregnancy and grief, plumbing the depths of sorrow within a marriage. But it is not only that. It is funny and profound, intense without ever becoming overwrought."

"Sheehy and Aramayo give explosive performances, matching each other’s intensity in different ways. This story is so dark (“Are we at the bottom yet?” he asks her) but you do not want to miss a second of it."

"Plot twists bring shock and dread, but alongside this there is both whimsy and deep rumination on mortality"

"This is a tear-jerker with 100% heart, 0% sentimentality. What a start to the Royal Court’s 70th anniversary season. What an emotional tour de force."

"Guess How Much I Love You deserves to conquer the world"

"This devastating pregnancy drama demonstrates the eviscerating power of live theatre"

"Sheehy is nothing less than by far the finest stage actress of her generation, a thrilling shape-shifter of a performer who subsumes herself so entirely into her roles... So blistering is her performance in Luke Norris’s pregnancy drama that if the Royal Court Theatre could plug her into the National Grid, it would save a fortune on its energy bills for the duration of the run."

"... what Norris offers is 100 minutes of devastating universal resonance."

"Jeremy Herrin’s beautifully modulated production provides the perfect support structure for this magnificent piece of writing, as Norris offers a series of scenes that keep on undercutting our expectations. It is an exquisite examination of pain borne jointly and severally"

"There is gallows humour and eviscerating truth-telling, as Sheehy blazes and Aramayo treads a quieter path, while suggesting fathomless depths of unexpressed anguish as a man watching his wife suffer and their joint hopes crumble."

"Selfishly, I want to keep Sheehy on stage for ever in an expanding repertoire of roles, although I suspect that television is belatedly going to recognise her talent and whisk her away very soon. Catch her, catch this, while you can."

"A couple make an impossible choice"

"Luke Norris’s beautifully performed new play at the Royal Court follows Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo as Her and Him as they get dire news at a 20-week scan"

"Don’t let this put you off but Luke Norris’s new play at the Royal Court is a bit of an ordeal."

"With no plot mechanics to distract us the attention is all on the writing and the acting."

"Most scenes could take some trims. Yet Guess How Much I Love You? has a cumulative power."

"Sheehy has excelled before... but she has never been better than as this jagged, devastated woman."

"Jeremy Herrin’s production flows with unblinking finesse, even when the arguments get circular. Aramayo is terrific as the more passive partner trying to be supportive, straining to stay included."

"It is not exactly enjoyable. And yet this smartly observed, cannily constructed, beautifully performed play will stay with me."

"Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo excel in Luke Norris’s devastating play about early parenthood"

"... as a certified two-time parent, I found Guess How Much I Love You? – which does indeed take its name from the classic picturebook – to be a painfully acute portrait of the stress early parenthood can put on a relationship."

"Norris isn’t trying to show a balanced account of what parenthood typically does to a couple, but rather the dark places it can go... But even accepting it’s a relief to have not been entirely in their boat, Guess How Much I Love You? does ring painfully emotionally true."

"... the fact Grace Smart’s sets don’t tend to fill the stage, but rather sit in inky pools of darkness, gives it an unsettling, claustrophobic feel."

"There’s such an exquisite purity to its bleakness that the theatre wanker within me felt a twinge of resentment when Guess How Much I Love You? ended on a relatively happy note. But actually that’s parenthood: you touch the abyss for a bit, and then you pretty much have to pull yourself back. Good times!"

"Harrowingly powerful"

"Exceptional performances from Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo drive this bleak and brutal play"

"This harrowingly powerful play by Luke Norris about grief, loss and love features exceptional performances from Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo."

"What follows is hard to watch but impossible to tear your eyes from. It’s as bleak as Beckett but also brutally funny and agonizingly empathetic."

"If there’s a fault, it’s that the two characters sometimes sound too lucid, too composed, whenever stark reality and raw emotion abate."

"I can’t exactly call the play a pleasure to watch but it’s definitely a privilege."

"Sheehy... is easily one of the finest stage actors of her generation. Aramayo has primarily been feted on screen in Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones and the recent indie smash I Swear but proves himself an excellent live foil to Sheehy."

"And I must stress again, the play is extremely funny, laced with a mordant gallows wit and the sort of sarky banter that for some couples denotes intimacy."

"Herrin expertly manages the emotional flashpoints and retrenchments of the script. You can probably tell I’m avoiding spoilers, but I will say there is a final, lovely gesture of hope at the end."

"Gloriously profane hymn to hope and human resilience"

"Devastating, intimate drama starring Rosie Sheehy and Robert Aramayo explores the limits of love"

"The most raw, most intensely private moments are strung together in this agonising and absorbing new play by Luke Norris, its scenes like the barbs on a length of razor wire."

"Norris’ chamber drama, wrapped around a couple in their 30s, Him (Robert Aramayo) and Her (Rosie Sheehy), is a sort of gloriously profane hymn to hope and human resilience, and to love"

"... the two central performances are extraordinary. Sheehy’s Her is clever, warm, a touch guarded and emotionally wary... Aramayo’s Him is more wistful, romantic"

"The savagery that they inflict on each other – the sheer grief-fuelled, gut-chewing, world-upending agony that they must process – is all the more ravaging for the unglamorous, unsentimental authenticity of their bond."

"It all leaves you feeling wrung out, but it’s also, in an oddly soothing way, also life-affirming. Shattering, and in its way, quite beautiful."

"Its opening scene feels utterly contemporary and entirely real, crackling with the cut and thrust of everyday conversation."

"Their quickfire exchanges are funny and convincing. You instantly believe in them as a couple and care about their lives."

"The play is superbly written, never losing either its tension (so I don’t want to give too much away), its humour or its ability to involve the audience in this searing set of choices. It is also magnificently acted by Robert Aramayo and Rosie Sheehy, both utterly convincing as a couple coping with too much"

"Director Jeremy Herrin lets the conversations – punctuated with quite long blackouts – unfold at a gripping, but carefully modulated pace"

"It doesn’t have any huge relevance beyond itself, but it does shine a light on ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances and lets them live on stage."

"This gut-wrenching play moved me deeply – but grief porn is perverse"

"By making you feel rather than think, Luke Norris’s Guess How Much I Love You? is something of a creative cop-out"

"Luke Norris’s nakedly upsetting new relationship drama Guess How Much I Love You? is designed to make you feel rather than think. Starring the formidable Rosie Sheehy and BAFTA rising star nominee Robert Aramayo... it’s a masterclass in fire-hosing emotion, but it’s also a perverse season-opening choice in the Royal Court’s 70th anniversary year."

"Norris toys with audience expectations but fundamentally fulfils them."

"Crucially Sheehy, in a characteristically ferocious unvarnished performance, never sets out to court our sympathy. Nor does Norris let her instinctively antagonistic character off the hook"

"Yet while Norris is clearly motivated by the need to tell a ghastly story that could affect any prospective parent, his subject feels like a creative cop-out."

"... I can’t pretend the play’s wrenching gear shifts as the couple agonisingly learn how to recalibrate didn’t move me deeply."